Feeding Someone Else's Baby

The wine I need this evening, but don't have, is Robert Mondavi's Private Selection Pinot Noir.
Click here to see the pretty bottle.

I know nothing about the "alluvial soil" you'll read about in the maker's review, or whether it being from California means anything at all. Here is what I know about it:

I got one bottle for 10 cents during the most amazing grocery store alcohol sale ever. I paid $18.99 for the full-price bottle I was obligated to buy in order to get the 10-cent bottle.

It's light in color, which makes it look a little wimpy. That deceptive color, combined with the very smooth drinkable quality, might trick you into thinking it's a lightweight and you can handle the whole bottle on your own. But, halfway through, you'll start to feel the late tipsy kick-in. Just when you thought you were still fully functional, things start weaving slowly, your motions echoing a moment after their conclusion. That winds down slowly to a heavy settling later, perfect for crashing into bed and waking for very little.

It causes little in the way of the annoying stuffy nose problem I frequently experience with red wine, which has something to do with histamines. Red wine causes me all sorts of unpleasant allergic side effects such as stuffy nose, a flushed-red face, nausea and ripping headaches, but I still really enjoy it. I find that cutting myself off at two reasonable-sized glasses can help limit these problems, but I'm not immune to finishing off a whole bottle with a group of friends. (My level of maturity in the presence of joviality can be quite low.)

Despite my love of good company, I should note that I also classify this bottle as "Not Likely To Share."If you come over, there's almost a guaranteed chance I'll be stashing it behind my son's lunchbox on top of our fridge, and serving up something else to you.

During solitary drinking, and possibly doing some kind of chore, I find that that this wine goes quite well with Black Keys, Brothers.

I'm wishing I had a bottle of this with me tonight, and peeved that I actually have no wine at all, because I just found a home for my breast pump, and could use a little alcoholic comfort. I used my pump years ago during the 18 months that I nursed my son. I didn't actually need it since I brought my son to the office with me for 14 of those months. I used the pump anyway because I was always so worried that my body couldn't possibly be sufficient for my baby's needs. Of course, it surely was, but pumping that extra milk that I froze and then donated to mothers who couldn't breastfeed allayed my fears, and nourished other babies besides. I have kept the pump, though my son is now nearly five years old, because breastfeeding was the closest thing to real magic in my life: the body that I thought I knew, and spent plenty of years loathing, changed literally overnight into the perfect thing my baby needed. I was enough, sufficient, capable, magical. That pump is one of my few solid links to that time, but I know it's selfish to keep it collecting dust when another family could make good functional use of it. I found a woman online in Indiana today who is expecting her fourth child and will rely on the pump to help her nourish her baby after she returns to work. I'm packing it up for her tonight, sending it away, and trying to remember that, instead of a machine, that bounding, healthy little boy of mine is really my best souvenir.